Heating, Cooling, Ventilation and Electrical Systems

CMHC's Healthy House in Toronto ensures that you are breathing clean, fresh air in an energy-efficient environment.

House design, landscaping and technology are all used to help heat and cool the house and reduce dependence on the earth's resources.

Large energy-efficient south-facing windows and solar panels capture sunlight, while the thermal mass of the house — concrete floors and walls — make efficient use of solar energy. The house uses about one-tenth of the amount of energy needed to heat a conventional house. This means that sunlight can provide most of the energy for space heating needs. Trees and ivy trellises provide shade in summer, and do not block sunlight during winter.

Energy storage and conversion technology ensures that the solar energy is available in whatever form is needed year-round. When additional energy is needed, a co-generation unit supplies additional electricity and heat.

The ventilation system is designed to ensure that the air entering the house is as clean as possible and is evenly distributed.

The Benefits of Healthy Housing

Healthy Housing™ provides a healthy indoor environment, conserves the earth's resources, minimizes pollution — and it's affordable.

CMHC has worked with builders, designers, all levels of government, manufacturers and material suppliers to develop economically viable ways to design and build housing that enhances human and environmental health.

Builders learn that Healthy Housing™ allows them to use local materials very efficiently, and to construct competitively priced homes with value-added features.

Occupants find that Healthy Housing™ homes are less expensive and easier to maintain and provide increased comfort and improved indoor air quality for better health.

Communities discover that Healthy Housing™ places less pressure on municipal services, which leads to lower costs for local governments.

And the Earth benefits, too. Healthy Housing™ results in less pollution of air and water than conventional

Fundamental Physiologic Needs

Housing should provide for the following physiologic needs:

1.    protection from the elements,

2.    a thermal environment that will avoid undue heat loss,

3.    a thermal environment that will permit adequate heat loss from the body,

4.    an atmosphere of reasonable chemical purity,

5.    adequate daylight illumination and avoidance of undue daylight glare,

6.    direct sunlight,

7.    adequate artificial illumination and avoidance of glare,

8.    protection from excessive noise, and

9.    adequate space for exercise and for children to play.

Who Makes Sure My Home Is Safe and Healthful?

Town Health Officers inspect rented homes to make sure the homes meet basic health and safety rules. Towns, villages, and cities enforce the health and safety rules. The Vermont Division of Fire Safety inspects rented homes for electric and other fire-related health and safety problems. If your rent is subsidized, the Housing Authority that runs the subsidy program inspects the home before you move in and while you live there.

Who Must Keep My Home Safe and Healthful?

 Your landlord and you. Vermont landlord and tenant law gives renters the right to live in safe, healthful homes. Your landlord can only rent a home to you if it is healthy and safe when he rents it to you. He must also fix any problems that make it unsafe or unhealthy after you move in. If you cause damage that makes the home you are renting unsafe or unhealthy, your landlord can charge you to fix the damage.

What Does "Safe and Healthful" Housing Mean?

The State of Vermont defines basic health and safety standards for rented homes. All rented homes in Vermont must meet the basic Vermont health and safety rules. Some cities and towns have extra rules. The Vermont rules apply to all rented homes in Vermont. City and town rules are extra rules that apply to your home if the home you rent is in the town or city that made the extra rules. Housing Authorities also have housing health and safety rules. If your rent is subsidized, the Housing Authority health and safety rules apply. These rules are called "Housing Quality Standards" or "HQS." Generally, HQS rules require the same safety standards as Vermont's health and safety rules.

How does housing help us regulate our body heat?

It protects us from the weather, helping us to keep cool by shading us from the heat of the sun, or to keep warm by protecting us from cold, wind and rain.

The exchange of heat between our body and the immediate environment is dependent on the difference of temperature between the two. Relatively cold air is useful to take away excess heat through the process of convection. Convection is involved when there is a heat exchange between our body and relatively cold air moving across the body. Heat loss by conduction is involved when body heat is transferred to a colder surface by direct touch. The third mechanism for heat transfer is radiation, when body heat is lost directly to the immediate environment because of a temperature difference between two objects. Our housing should be suitable to help us regulate our body heat.

Sleeping

Sleep is a time when our body must get complete rest in order to be refreshed for the next day. Sleeping requires a separate room and should be free from any disturbance such as noise and indoor air pollution. The housing structure should provide adequate space in the form of a bedroom that is reasonably free from any environmental hazard that could disrupt sleeping. Separate bedrooms for children and adults are, in many families, a necessity.

Breathing

Breathing is a physiological process that utilizes oxygen for energy production and expels the waste as carbon dioxide (CO₂). Housing must allow adequate fresh air to get into the house and used air to get out. This ventilation of air is facilitated by a window. The area of the window surface through which air can pass must be proportional to the floor area of the room in order to get adequate air supply per given time. A guide of 10% (light and air admitting window area divided by floor area) is assumed to be adequate for residential housing.

What is Housing?

Every family and individual has a basic right to a decent home and a suitable living environment. Housing is a basic prerequisite for health. This right is noted in the constitutions of many countries, including Ethiopia. Housing is a term that we use for a physical structure in which we live.

Just stop reading for a moment and ask yourself: what is housing?

You may say housing is a shelter where we sleep and live, or a place in which we cook our food, or a place where a child grows, or a place where we get clean water for drinking.

You will probably have a long list like this. The question is, then, how will you provide a complete understanding of housing so that members of your community understand you?